Smart Factory Architect (Freelance)

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About the role:

We’re looking for a hands-on Smart Factory Architect who can design and drive delivery of edge-to-cloud industrial data & application architectures across global manufacturing sites. You’ll bridge OT systems(PLC/SCADA/DCS/MES/Historians) with cloud services (Azure/AWS/Snowflake, etc.),ensuring ISA-95 interoperability, robust cybersecurity (Zero Trust), and reliable data flows for use cases like performance analytics, predictive maintenance, and digital twins.

You’ll operate as a technical leader who can review architecture, validate implementation plans, unblock delivery, and communicate clearly across engineering, OT, security, networking, and site stakeholders.

Tasks:

• Architecture & technical leadership

• Act as the technical expert for Smart Factory / Edge architectures in a multi-site, multi-stakeholder environment.
• Review architectural designs (edge, network, cloud,security, data models) and confirm the feasibility of implementation plans.
• Align with Cloud Engineers and OT consultants toensure ISA-95 compliant IT/OT integration and interoperability across layers(L0–L4/5).
• Validate that all required services are deployed andconfigured correctly (cloud resources, edge runtime, connectivity, identity,monitoring).
• Edge-to-cloud integration & data flow validation
• Define and validate edge-to-cloud data flowrequirements, including:
• Tag list/signals, payload schemas/formats, namingconventions
• Frequency, buffering, store-and-forward,latency/availability targets
• Data quality rules (units, timestamps, limits, gaps,duplicates)
• Create logical & conceptual models forcontextualization
• Validate conceptual and logical modelling of thefactory asset hierarchy (site/area/line/cell/equipment/component) and mappingto data streams.
• Support the implementation of industrial connectivitypatterns (e.g., OPC UA, MQTT, Modbus, REST) and integration with OT datasources (historians, SCADA, MES, CMMS, LIMS when relevant).
• Cloud & platform enablement (Azure/AWS/Snowflake)
• Drive architecture decisions for ingestion, storage,and analytics using services such as:
• Azure (IoT Hub, Event Hubs, Functions, AKS, Data Lake,Databricks/Synapse, Monitor, Key Vault, Private Link)
• AWS (IoT Core, Kinesis, Lambda, EKS, S3, Glue,CloudWatch, Secrets Manager, Greengrass)
• Snowflake (ingestion patterns, data modeling,governance, performance considerations)
• Ensure observability is in place: logging, metrics,tracing, alerting, and operational runbooks.
• Network, cybersecurity & site readiness
• Coordinate with site IT/networking to ensure:
• Connectivity readiness (routing, DNS, proxy,certificates)
• Firewall rules, ports, and secure connectivitypatterns (VPN/ExpressRoute/Direct Connect where applicable)
• Ensure alignment with factory cybersecurity and ZeroTrust principles, including segmentation, least privilege, secure remoteaccess, and auditability.
• Testing, go-live, and operational stabilization
• Own the go-live checklist and drive issue resolutionduring integration testing and cutover.
• Support test data ingestion and end-to-end validation,from OT signal extraction through cloud ingestion, storage, and consumption.
• Validate performance and reliability requirements(throughput, latency, resilience, recovery) and ensure operational handoverreadiness.
• Digital Twin & OT platforms
• Contribute to Digital Twin concepts built on IT/OT convergence (asset hierarchy + telemetry + context).
• Work hands-on with OT / Smart Factory platforms such  as AVEVA, Sight Machine, and/or similar (e.g., Ignition, OSIsoft/PI, Tulip, PTCThingWorx, depending on environment).

What We're Looking For:

• 7+ years of experience in industrial IT/OT, smart factory, or manufacturing digitalization roles, with architect-level ownership of designs and deployments.
• Proven hands-on delivery experience implementing edge-to-cloud integration in real factory environments.
• Strong understanding of:
• ISA-95 (integration patterns and manufacturing systemlayers)
• Industrial architectures (OT network segmentation, DMZpatterns, edge gateways)
• Core OT systems (PLC/SCADA/DCS, historian, MES) anddata acquisition methods
• Cloud architecture experience on Azure and/or AWS(plus familiarity with Snowflake, data bricks and modern data platforms).
• Solid fundamentals in networking (firewalls, VLANs, routing, certificates, proxies) and troubleshooting in restricted environments.
• knowledge of identity and access management (AzureAD/RBAC/Managed Identities or AWS IAM, secrets, key management).
• Excellent communication skills, able to lead technical conversations with security, IT, OT, and business stakeholders globally.
  

Technical skill set (must-have):

• Edge/IIoT protocols & patterns: OPC UA, MQTT, RESTAPIs, store-and-forward, buffering, offline resilience
• Data engineering basics: schema design, time-series concepts, streaming ingestion, partitioning, data quality checks
• Cloud security: least privilege, private networking, key management, audit/logging, policy enforcement
• Operational readiness: integration test planning, go-live governance, incident triage and structured problem-solving

Preferred / nice-to-have:

• Knowledge of IEC 62443 / OT security frameworks and industrial zero trust patterns.
• Experience with Kubernetes at edge/cloud (AKS/EKS),IaC (Terraform/Bicep/CloudFormation), and CI/CD.
• Experience with industrial historians and time-seriesstacks (e.g., AVEVA/PI-like patterns).
• Familiarity with data governance (catalog, lineage, access policies) and regulated environments.
• Experience building or operationalizing Digital Twin solutions (asset model + context + telemetry).

Missing one or two of these qualifications? We still want to hear from you! If you bring a positive mindset, we'll provide an environment where you feel valued and empowered to learn and grow.